The Historical Novel

#1 New York Times Bestseller Oprah's Book Club Selection The “extraordinary . . . monumental masterpiece” (Booklist) that changed the course of Ken Follett’s already phenomenal career—and begins where its prequel, The Evening and the Morning, ended. “Follett risks all and comes out a clear winner,” extolled Publishers Weekly on the release of The Pillars of the Earth. A departure for the bestselling thriller writer, the historical epic stunned readers and critics alike with its ambitious scope and gripping humanity. Today, it stands as a testament to Follett’s unassailable command of the written word and to his universal appeal. The Pillars of the Earth tells the story of Philip, prior of Kingsbridge, a devout and resourceful monk driven to build the greatest Gothic cathedral the world has known . . . of Tom, the mason who becomes his architect—a man divided in his soul . . . of the beautiful, elusive Lady Aliena, haunted by a secret shame . . . and of a struggle between good and evil that will turn church against state and brother against brother. A spellbinding epic tale of ambition, anarchy, and absolute power set against the sprawling medieval canvas of twelfth-century England, this is Ken Follett’s historical masterpiece.

The historical novel is an enduringly popular genre that raises crucial questions about key literary concepts, fact and fiction, identity, history, reading, and writing. In this comprehensive, focused guide, Jerome de Groot offers an accessible introduction to the genre and critical debates that surround it, including: the development of the historical novel from early eighteenth-century works through to postmodern and contemporary historical fiction different genres, such as sensational or ‘low’ fiction, crime novels, literary works, counterfactual writing and related issues of audience, value, and authenticity the many functions of historical fiction, particularly the challenges it poses to accepted histories and postmodern questioning of ‘grand narratives’ the relationship of the historical novel to the wider cultural sphere with reference to historical theory, the internet, television, and film key theoretical concepts such as the authentic fallacy, postcolonialism, Marxism, queer and feminist reading. Drawing on a wide range of examples from across the centuries and around the globe The Historical Novel is essential reading for students exploring the interface of history and fiction.

The daughters of a ruthlessly ambitious family, Mary and Anne Boleyn are sent to the court of Henry VIII to attract the attention of the king, who first takes Mary as his mistress, in which role she bears him an illegitimate son, and then Anne as his wife. Reprint. 250,000 first printing. (A Columbia Pictures film, written by Peter Morgan, directed by Justin Chadwick, releasing Fall 2007, starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, Eric Bana, and others) (Historical Fiction)

A century since the monarchy was overthrown the country of Albiyon has become a haven for its citizens, the young scholar Adairia included. Raised within the Albiyan university's walls she has dedicated her life to the pursuit of knowledge. Preferring to hole up in the library than seek adventure elsewhere, she has grown accustomed to her comfortable routine... until the day everything changes. When she unwittingly awakens a sleeping dragon's egg, Adairia is thrust into unfamiliar territory. Never having dreamed of dragons she is forced to seek out guidance from the exhilarating Isla, last direct descendent of the royal family and companion to a century's old dragon. Together they must navigate the surprises to come; for beyond the prospect of a new-born dragon Albiyon is about to face a dangerous conspiracy that threatens the peace of their realm. Flames of Albiyon is a story of friendship, love, and acceptance that celebrates queer identity.

The 'Father of Greater New York' is dead. Shot outside his Park Avenue mansion in the year of our Lord, 1903. In the hour of his death, will the truth of his life finally break free? Born to a struggling farming family in 1820, Andrew Haswell Green was a self-made man who reshaped Manhattan, built Central Park and turned New York into a modern metropolis. Now, at eighty-three, when he thought the world could hold no more surprises, he is murdered. As the detective assigned to the case traces his ghost across the city, other spectres appear: a wealthy courtesan; a broken-hearted man in a bowler hat; and an ambitious politician, Samuel, whose lifelong friendship was a source of joy and frustration. In a life of industry and restraint, where is the space for love? As restlessly inventive and absorbing as its protagonist, The Great Mistake is the story of a city, and a singular man, transformed by longing.

This volume explores the genre of the historical novel and the variety of ways in which writers choose to represent the past. How does an author’s nationality or gender impact their artistic choices? To what extent can historical novels appeal to a transnational audience? This study demonstrates how histories can communicate across national borders, often by invoking or deconstructing the very notion of nationhood. Furthermore, it traces how the concerns of the postmodern era, such as postmodern critiques of historiography, colonialism, identity, and the Enlightenment, have impacted the genre of the historical novel, and shows this impact has not been uniform throughout Western culture. Not all historical novels written during the postmodern era are postmodern. The historical novel as a genre occupies a problematic, yet significant space in Cold War literary currents, torn between claims of authenticity and the impossibility of accessing the past. Historical novels from England, America, Germany, and France are compared and contrasted with historical novels from Sweden, testing a variety of theoretical perspectives in the process. This pitting of a center against a periphery serves to highlight traits that historical novels from the West have in common, but also how they differ. The historical novel is not just a local, regional phenomenon, but has become, during the postmodern era, a transnational tool for exploring how we should think of nations and nationalism and what a society should, or should not, look like.

Demonstrating that nineteenth-century historical novelists played their rational, trustworthy narrators against shifting and untrustworthy depictions of space and place, Tom Bragg argues that the result was a flexible form of fiction that could be modified to reflect both the different historical visions of the authors and the changing aesthetic tastes of the reader. Bragg focuses on Scott, William Harrison Ainsworth, and Edward Bulwer Lytton, identifying links between spatial representation and the historical novel's multi-generic rendering of history and narrative. Even though their understanding of history and historical process could not be more different, all writers employed space and place to mirror narrative, stimulate discussion, interrogate historical inquiry, or otherwise comment beyond the rational, factual narrator's point of view. Bragg also traces how landscape depictions in all three authors' works inculcated heroic masculine values to show how a dominating theme of the genre endures even through widely differing versions of the form. In taking historical novels beyond the localized questions of political and regional context, Bragg reveals the genre's relevance to general discussions about the novel and its development. Nineteenth-century readers of the novel understood historical fiction to be epic and serious, moral and healthful, patriotic but also universal. Space and Narrative in the Nineteenth-Century British Historical Novel takes this readership at its word and acknowledges the complexity and diversity of the form by examining one of its few continuous features: a flexibly metaphorical valuation of space and place.

The historical novel has had a very interesting history itself. During the 19th century the historical novels of Scott, Hugo, Thackeray, Dickens, Tolstoy and a host of other writers enjoyed both popular success and critical admiration. Success has never really died out, but admiration has been another matter. During the 20th century, historical fiction began to be disparaged by critics who looked down on the genre and its elements of romance, adventure and swashbuckling. This disparagement reached such a pitch that Robert Graves, author of I, Claudius and Claudius the God, felt compelled to say that he wrote these novels only because of pressing financial needs. As the century wore on, the genre began to move in a variety of interesting ways and reached even larger audiences. Some critics have continued to look down on the genre, but a growing number of historical novels have begun to receive wide critical praise. The Roman historian Ronald Syme once wrote that narrative is the essence of history. What is the essence of historical fiction? Why does it continue to be such a popular and resilient genre? What is the history of historical fiction? What is its future?